Related Applications
There are no applications related hereto heretofore filed in this or any foreign country.
1. Field of Invention
My invention relates generally to plant pots and more particularly to a compound pot having two portions maintained in releasable interconnection by a bottom cup.
2. Background and Description of Prior Art
Peripherally defined pots of one sort or another have long been used for the containment of soil or other media for the growing of plants therein. Such pots commonly have been associated with the containment of flowering plants and by reason thereof, have commonly come to be known in the vernacular as "flower pots". That term "pot" as used herein is used with such meaning, but it is to be understood that it includes pots for all types of plants, whether they be of a flowering nature or not.
Known plant pots have taken many and various forms and configurations for particular specialized purposes of either a utilitarian or ornamental nature. All such pots, however, share the common purpose of containment of a sufficient quantity of some type of medium which, with appropriate care, will sustain a plant biologically established therein. Because a plant is a living and growing organism, its conditions, nature and circumstances often change and the containing pot that may at one time be appropriate for a particular plant at a different time well may be inappropriate for it. It is therefore sometimes necessary to remove a plant from a pot in which it is growing. The chief reason for this removal requirement is the growth of the plant itself, which in the case of ornamental plants may required repotting in a larger pot, or in the case of various commercial plants may require transference to some other type of plant sustaining medium such as the earth.
The removal of a plant from a pot in which it has become established in a growth media often presents problems. Most plants that are cultured in pots have complex root structure extending into the growth medium in a pot and generally, this root structure is fairly extensive in comparison to the limited volume of an average pot and is of quite delicate nature. Most pot raised plants are fairly sensitive to disturbance of their root structure. If that root structure be severely disturbed, the health of a plant and its growth cycle may be materially adversely effected, and the effect may even cause plant death in severe cases in with plants of unusually delicate nature.
This problem has been recognized in the past, but has not been dealt with to nearly the same degree of sophistication as has been involved with the development of modern horticulture in general. Most commonly in the past, if the problem was not ignored, the common methods of dealing with it was to break a pot structure, if possible, to attempt to maintain the planting media in somewhat of a unified coherent mass so as not to damage fine plant roots anymore than necessary in the transplanting process, or to use pots which had truncated conical shape from which the volume of contained planting media might possibly be lifted upwardly and removed in somewhat of a coherent mass, without causing too much root damage. Neither method has been very satisfactory as the first is destructive of the pot which tends to make the process not particularly economically feasible. The second method has not proven too effective because of the difficulty in removing the plant growing media from a pot, and even if it can be removed, the difficulty in maintaining it in some sort of a coherent mass so that extensive root damage is not caused during the process.
In the more recent development of plant pots, various permeable and disintegratable materials have been used for the pot structure, such as pressed peat moss, fibrous fabric mats, agglomerated frangible plastic materials, and the like which may either disintegrate by the time a pant requires repotting or else may allow some of the plant roots to penetrate the container and pass therefrom without pot removal. This type of container has been used largely commercially for the containment of small plants or seedlings which commonly are transplanted within a relatively short period after initial establishment in a pot, as such pots do not provide any effective permanent containment as commonly desired for house plants. Such permeable type pots generally have not become too popular in commerce because they have been fairly expensive, they are expendable and they in general disrupt the normal biological functioning of a plant by providing at least a partial barrier to its root development even though they are somewhat penetratable. The instant invention is distinguishable from this type of pot in providing a solid peripherally defined pot that has separable parts and is not intended for either time orientated disintegration or invasion by plant root systems.
Though most known plant pots have been of a unitary simple structure, compound type pots having relatively movable parts or take-apart features have become known, though not nearly so well as their simple counterparts. The take-apart pots of the prior art generally have provided a pot structure, or at least the vertical elements of such a structure, with relatively movable portions, usually two in number and each of somewhat the same size. These movable parts generally have been interconnected at or near their joining edges by some type of mechanical structure interconnected to both pot parts, usually a hinge. My invention differs from this art by providing two pot portions that are not mechanically joined but interconnect by an overlapping seam defined along their entire adjacent edges, which generally is not possible with a hingeably interconnected structure. My pot parts are removably interconnected in their overlapping areas by nubbin and indentation type connectors depending for their function on the configuration of the pot structure and the resilient deformability of the material from which the pot is constructed.
My pot additionally provides a cup-like dish that fits about the bottom portion of the pot when in assembled mode to releasably but quite securely maintain that assembled mode. This fastening cup structure cooperates with the adjacent surface of the pot to provide additional complementary nubbin and indentation and releasable fastening of take-part type pots does not appear to be known in the prior plant pot art.
Another type of compound pot structure that has heretofore become known provides a pot of a compound nature that has a plurality of parts that may allow the expansion of the pot during use, so that when expanded additional medium may be added to the pot to effectively accomplish pot enlargement with a minimal disturbance to plant roots. This type of pot generally has a plurality of relatively movable periphery forming elements, and at least more than two such elements. The elements normally are not fastenably interconnected by reason of their configuration so that they can be separated from each other and the structure is necessarily of a quite complex nature and high manufacturing cost, to distinguish that type of pot structure from my pot.
My invention lies not in any one of these features per se, but rather in the synergistic combination of all of the structures of my pot that necessarily give rise to the functions flowing therefrom, as herein specified and claimed.